Ukraine Travel Advisory – Level 4: Do Not Travel | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine Travel Advisory – Level 4: Do Not Travel

travel.state.gov

18 pointskarencarits6 comments

This would be more impactful if 3/4 of the world wasn't already at "Level 4: Do Not Travel". As it is, it signals that Ukraine is as dangerous as such countries as Australia, Canada, France, The United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden each of which is also listed as Do Not Travel. You will definitely me much saver traveling to Libya, Mexico, Pakistan, or Madagascar (Level 2: Reconsider Travel) than to any of those places...

As much as I would like for them to be, I'm not sure that Department of State travel advisories are a useful indicator of traveler safety at this time.

To be clear, I'm not saying this warning isn't serious, just that the system has been abused to the point it's harder to signal urgency.

Those level 4 warnings are all about COVID. The Ukraine one is for COVID but also the strong possibility of Russian tank shells.

I edited my comment to be more clear.

I'm not saying that it isn't dangerous. I'm saying that the 'levels' system seems to be broken. When "imminent danger of becoming an active war zone" is at the same level as "health risks similar to traveling domestically" the 'levels' no longer communicate much of use.

Page and site in whole actually unavailable in Ukraine (as for me): is site down OR is there GeoIP-restriction for access this site?

BTW, Here is archived copy.[0]

UPD: U.S. Embassy Kyiv (Ukraine) just re-posted this Travel Advisory on own site too:

> By U.S. Embassy Kyiv | 11 February, 2022 | Topics: Alert, Notification[1]

Post on Embassy site available for me in Ukraine, btw here is archived copy too.[2]

[alert tweet] https://twitter.com/TravelGov/status/1491917406809341958

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20220210233435/https://travel.sta...

[1] https://ua.usembassy.gov/travel-advisory-ukraine-level-4-do-...

[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20220211022054/https://ua.usembas...

This alert is dated today (10 Feb 2022). It would be interesting to know what new information promoted this warning, rather than issuing it sometime over the past two weeks.

Russia is "starting" major military drills coordinated across Belarus, Russia, and naval assets in the black sea.

Either Russia is doing a great job convincing the US that they are planning to invade, or they will start invading. If Russia simply wanted to extract a deal from Ukraine, having the US shout that an invasion is imminent probably helps.

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